Your tip: making money by watching ads?

Hoops. As consumers, we are constantly jumping through them. Savvy consumers don’t shy away from hoops, but we know exactly how many hoops are between us and a prize, empowering us to make a good decision. Should I jump? Or walk away?

I’m not sure if is a hoop worth jumping through and I need your help to decide. A reader named Glenn told me about Varolo:

A friend of mine informed me of a brand new marketing site called Varolo. It’s official launch date is 04/17/11. Advertisers pay you to watch ads on the Internet. You earn money by how many ads you watch during the week and how many ads are watched by your “village.” I’m sure you’re familiar with this type of marketing strategy. Ordinarily, I wouldn’t bother you with sites like this, but it’s free to join and you don’t pay them anything. Also, there’s a weekly jackpot that continuously grows until someone hits.

I’m going to give it a shot. I have nothing to lose, and I always welcome the chance to earn extra cash.

The problem is you don’t earn money by watching ads unless you have referred others to sign up for Varolo and they watch ads. Then, you earn a small percentage of what the advertiser has paid for every friend who watches an ad. To plump the offer, Varolo pays a percentage of what your extended network of friends watch (friends of friends of friends). But you still don’t know upfront how much money a certain ad pays.

And your friends must do more than simply watch ads, they must answer questions about the ad within 15 seconds or it doesn’t count. On top of that, to access your earnings from friends watching ads, you have to watch ads!

Sounds like I’m stacking the desk against Varolo, right? But there are incentives. The site is entirely free so getting involved means spending time only. The ads are relatively short, about two minutes each. Once you build a “village” of friends, you continue earning money while watching the same amount of ads. You can maximize your earnings by watching, on average, 10 minutes of ads a day.

Because the site launch is in two weeks there are no ads to watch yet. But when the time comes, would you join Varolo? Are their simpler sites out there to earn money by watching ads?

Comments

this is good for those that have the time to waste…have no lives…want to annoy their friends…I’ll join Varolo when I have to sit in a wheel chair in front of my computer…this sounds just like the kind of company that will sell your name…when you stop working for them.

There’s the old saying, “You don’t get something for nothing.” I believe this to be a universal truth. I would be very suspicious and stay far away from any company that requires a payment of any kind upfront before you begin to earn money. In this case, no payment of any kind is required, but it does require time to watch and rate the ads. 5-10 minutes of ads a day doesn’t seem like a whole lot of time to me if you already spend a significant amount of time on the Internet whether it be checking or sending emails, updating your FB page, online banking, shopping, researching, etc. I may want to view a particular ad, and if I don’t, I could play it while multi-tasking on something else and rate the commercial before the 15-second window expires. Unless someone out there knows more about the ins-and-outs of Varolo than what the Bargainbabe has already posted, I don’t see the risk in giving it a try. If it turns out it’s not for you, then it’s not for you. On the other hand….